Orange Drank - Tasting Notes

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: India Pale Ale 
Brewed On: 08.16.2015
Kegged On: 09.01.2015
OG: 1.060 (after dilution from 1.063)
FG: 1.009
ABV: 6.7%

Appearance: Completely opaque. Ridiculously so. Big, sticky off-white head hang around for quite a while. Nice tight bubble structure. When not in good light, the beer appears a bit brown. In good light it's nice and orange.
Smell: My wife said "This smells like sunshine!" when I handed her a sample. I'm inclined to agree. Huge citrus aroma. Layers of mandarin, tangerine, meyer lemon, starfruit, mango, and a hint of pine. Just layers of tasty citrusy hops.
Taste: The caramel 40 gives this a bit too much of a malt flavor for my preferences. Other than that, this is a great beer. Bitterness stands nicely among a storm of hop flavors. As the beer warms the flavors evolve from orange juice to mangoes and tangerines. Oatmeal flavor is present as well, but in the background.
Mouthfeel: Thick. Like so thick. Nearly milkshake thick. This beer is thicker than some stout's I've had. Also super creamy. Carbonation (at 2.2 vols) is nice. 
Overall: Great beer. Next time I brew, there will certainly be a few tweaks to the malt bill to rebalance some flavors. But I really like this IPA.

Wow. So in some ways this beer completely blew away my expectations. In fact, some things ended up being a bit too much. I didn't know that was possible.

The mouthfeel of this body rivals many stouts I've had. It's ridiculous. I love it, and at the same time I think I might have gone a bit overboard. It's like a hoppy, citrusy milkshake. When I brew this beer again, I plan to reduce the oatmeal content to something like 0.5-1 # (still around 5-10 % of the grain bill) and add in around 0.5 # of wheat malt as well. The caramel 40 is a bit too much as well, and I think I will go with caramel 20 or carared next time around. I think this will bring the body a little more inline with what I had in mind. I definitely will have to refine the malt bill of this recipe in the next few iterations to really nail my vision of this beer.

The water chemistry seems to have been a huge success. There is a certain creaminess about this beer that can't be attributed solely to the flaked oats. The hop aromas are way more in-your-face and the flavors are really nice, but the bitterness melds nicely into the background, supporting but not overwhelming.

I think with a few tweaks this beer will be absolutely amazing. 

Recipe and brew log may be found here.

Feral IPA - Recipe From the Archives

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: India Wild Ale
Date Brewed: 04.26.2014
Date Bottled: 06.02.2014
OG: 1.061
FG: 1.007 (estimated)
ABV: 7.1%

Appearance: Super pale yellow, with a heavy cloudiness. Wheat + a yeast that just doesn't want to flocc. Almost looks like a berliner weisse with a huge head of foam.
Smell: Originally this beer had an absurdly huge nose of fresh tropical fruit and juicy citrus. The aged version developed much more of an over-ripe fruit aroma, stopping just short of full on funky. This is similar to, but far milder than many Brett beers I've had, and lets you know that this yeast is definitely not tame.
Taste: Again, very juicy. with a firm bitterness and dry finish. The aged version has evolved into something with less bitterness, and more of a funky/juicy finish that lingers for days. I get spicey clove notes, something that is almost horse-blanket esque without actually smelling like a horse (if that makes any sense at all), and tons of overripe mangoes, bananas, starfruit, meyer lemon, and mandarins.
Mouthfeel: Dry and crisp. I nailed the carbonation level of this one, with a hug billowy head that settles into a nice prickly carbonation that isn't too much, but makes this beer feel like a lot less than 7.3% abv.
Overall: A delicious beer, new or aged. I loved the evolution this beer went through over the last year.

In order to flesh out my blog just a bit more, I've decided to post some of my old favorite beers. The brew notes might not be as complete as some more recent beers, and the tasting notes will often be from memory, but these are some of my favorite beers I've ever brewed.

First up out of the archives is my first attempt at a 100% Brett fernentation. Little did I know that WLP 644 was a wild Saccharomyces masquerading as Brettanomyces. No bother though, as this beer turned out excellent. I sat on a single bottle of this, which I recently opened and took some tasting notes of. The beer definitely evolved over its life, but it also seems this yeast has excellent oxygen scavenging characteristics, as some hop flavor (though sadly little aroma) has hung around for over a year in the bottle.

I layered in the Citra, Centennial, and Chinook, to get a complex hop aroma with lots of citrus, spice, and floral notes. The malt bill was designed to be a sort of "white" ipa - heavy on wheat malt to lend some body to what I anticipated would be a very dry beer. I designed the whole recipe hoping to stay out of the way of the aromas of the yeast, huge amounts of overripe tropical fruit.

This was my first "huge success" as a home brewer. Of course I have many tweaks to make to this beer, and it turns out it isn't 100% Brettanomyces but it was delicious, and it really got me excited about brewing with odd-ball yeasts and other bugs.

Recipe

--------------------

Batch Size: 5.25 gallons into fermentor

Measured OG: 1.061

Anticipated IBUs: 94.7

Anticipated SRM: 4.4

Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 63%

Boil Time: 60 mins

Malt

--------------------

71.5% [10.15#] - Pale Malt (American 2-row)

23% [3.28#] - White Wheat Malt

3.5% [0.5#] - Carapils

2% [0.28#] - Acidulated Malt

Hops

--------------------

5mL [50 IBUs] of HopShot Extract @ 60 mins 

12.75 AAU [1.5 oz, 8.5%] - Centennial @ 60 mins

10.0 AAU [1.0 oz, 10.0%] - Citra - 15 minute hopstand

17.0 AAU [2.0 oz, 8.5%] - Centennial - 15 minute hopstand

13.0 AAU [1.0 oz, 13.0%] - Chinook - after hop stand, before chilling

10.0 AAU [1.0 oz, 10.0%] - Citra - after hop stand, before chilling

2.5 oz Citra - dry hop for 7 days

1.0 oz Chinook - dry hop for 7 days

1.5 oz Centennial - dry hop for 7 days

Extras

--------------------

1 Whirlfloc tablets @ 15 mins

1 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

Yeast

--------------------

1.5 L starter of White Labs WLP 644 aka "'Brettanomyces' Bruxellis Trois"

Water

--------------------

RO water from Tampa, FL

1 tsp Calcium Chloride

1 tsp Gypsum

Mash

--------------------

Brew in a Bag

Saccharification Rest - Full Volume @ 152 F

Mashed Out to 168 F then grain bag removed and allowed to drain into wort

Notes

--------------------

Fermented in a soft-sided cooler with frozen bottles to hold down temperature. Averaged 72 F through the fermentation.

New Zealand Pilsner Review

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: New Zealand Pilsner
Brewed On: 04.09.2015
Kegged On: 05.13.2015
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.7%

The review for the NZ Pilsner I brewed at the beginning of the summer seems to have slipped between the cracks. I will give it a quick review from memory and the few notes I took on it. Unfortunately, the bit of the beer that I was planning on using to review and take pictures of ended up on the bottom of my keezer due to some sort of slow leak from the beer post of my keg.

Brew day writeup and recipe may be found here.

Appereance: Super clear, very pale yellow. Brilliant even. Clearest beer I've ever made. The gelatin fining really paid off.

Smell: Bready and grainy pilsner malt all over the place. A tiny bit of a sort of winey Savignon Blanc aroma, but mostly overwhelmed by the pilsner malt. Maybe a little bit of melon in there.

Taste: Super crushable. This was a great lawnmower beer. Light on the palate. The bitterness was appropriate for style, but the whole beer ended up a little discordant. There was a great pilsner, and a nice hop aroma and flavor, but nothing really tied this beer all together.  

Mouthfeel: Super crisp and light. Carbonation was great. I really need to keg all of my beers.

Overall: Depends on what the goal was. If I'm looking for a crushable lawnmower beer with the subtlest of twists on it, this fits the bill pretty well. But I was really left wanting something to bring together the beer.

If I brew this beer again, I think I would dry hop it with around 2 oz of Nelson, and possibly up the 10 minute and flameout additions to the beer. I would also consider a hop stand to draw even more aroma and flavor out.

In addition, I find the beer really needs something in the mid palate, between the initial hit of hops and the pilsner finish. Perhaps a properly executed decoction to bring the beer to mash-out temperature would provide this, or a slight increase in the amount of Munich malt (or adding Munich 20L instead of 10L). 

Updated Recipe:

Recipe

--------------------
Batch Size: 6 gallons into fermentor
Anticipated OG: 1.048
Anticipated IBUs: 42.0
Anticipated SRM: 4.5
Boil Time: 90 mins

Malt
--------------------
82.5% [8.25#] - Avangard Pilsner Malt
10% [1#] - Carapils/Dextrine Malt
5% [0.5#] - Munich 20L

2.5% [0.25#] - Melanoiden Malt

Hops
--------------------
6 AAU [0.5 oz, 12%] Magnum @ 90 mins
11.4 AAU [5 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ 10 mins
11.4 AAU [1 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ 5 mins
22.8 AAU [2 oz, 11.4%] - Nelson Sauvin @ Hopstand for 15 mins
Extras
--------------------
1 Whirlfloc tablets @ 15 mins
0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

Yeast
--------------------
2L starter of Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager on stir plate. Crashed cold, decanted, and yeast pitched.

Water
--------------------
Winston Salem, NC municipal water
3.4 g CaCl
2.5 mL 88% Lactic Acid

Mash
--------------------
Saccharification Rest - 18.25 qt @ 152 F
Mash Out - Decoct 6.25 qt and boil

Rye Saison - Brew Day & Tasting Notes

Brewery: Old North Brewing
Style: Farmhouse Ale / Saison
Brewed On: 01.15.2015
Bottled On: 02.07.2015
ABV: 7.0%

Appearance: Pale gold and mildly cloudy. Huge billowing head stays around for quite a while, eventually settling into a persistent small cap.
Smell: Spicy and earthy. Reminiscent of an herb garden or freshly dug loam. Also a strong note from the rye stands out clearly. Notes of grapefruit peel, hay, dandelion, and coriander emerge as the beer warms. Very much a classic Belgian saison.
Taste: Opens with a peppery note, then races across the palate with notes of coriander, allspice, and a hint of black cardamom. A light tartness emerges along the sides of the tongue. Pilsner malt is very present, with an excellent honeyed bread taste that balances all the funk quite well. Retro-nasally there is almost an orange blossom note, very subtle, but present. Finishes with the peppery note still standing, and an earthy spiciness, almost like petrichor.
Mouthfeel: Light body. Prickly carbonation refreshes the palate. Fairly clean finish, but a sort of peppery note lingers for quite a while.
Overall: A great example of a farmhouse ale. Many layers of funk open up as this beer sits. The spicy notes from the yeast really ties together the rye and pilsner malt. 

One of the worst things I think that a new home brewer can do when designing a recipe is to try to many things at once. The best idea in my opinion is to stick to simple recipes and tweak only one or two things at a time; don't try and brew an untested IPA recipe with a new hopping technique, hop combos you picked from thin air, a new fermentation schedule, and the latest cool yeast. Of course, a fair substitute for trying all of these things out one at a time is to read what other's are doing and tweak one or two things.

This recipe was inspired by two things; Ed Coffey's farmhouse ale brewed with the same strain of yeast and the book Farmhouse Ales by Phil Markowski. I based my recipe on Markowski's "Classic Saison" recipe (p. 161), but substituted rye malt for the recommended wheat malt, and I used Munich I instead of a caramel malt because I wanted to keep the beer pale, but malty. These substitutions were inspired by Coffey's recipe for "Farmer in the Rye".

The Avangard malt I used in this recipe really caught me off guard. I originally designed this recipe to clock in at a much lower 1.048 OG, and only assumed I would get 68% efficiency. I was guessing that that number might even be high since I was still figuring out my system. Instead I got near 75% efficiency and an OG of 1.057. For some reason my boil-off was also oddly high. Looking back I should have diluted my wort back to something closer to 1.048, but I ended up with a very tasty beer so no complaints.

Overall, this is one of my favorite beers that I have brewed. The natural temperature control that I gained thanks to a poorly insulated room and a warm closet definitely made a difference in this beer. A lot of other little things (mash pH, water chemistry, techniques, recipe tweaks, good yeast) that I have been working on for a while came together to make a really great beer. It's a testament to the fact that all of the little pieces really do make a difference when you bring it all together.

That said, it's pretty obvious from the picture that this beer is pretty darn over-carbonated. I'm not entirely sure why that is. I was originally aiming at 3.0 volumes of CO2 which is a little high but well within style. It's possible that the beer continued to ferment a fraction of a point after bottling (but given I measure the FG at 1.004 I sort of doubt it). I weighed out the sugar and measured using a calibrated bottling bucket. The problem seems to be endemic to the entire batch, so it doesn't seem like I failed to mix the priming sugar well. The only thing I can figure is that I used a sugar which was more fermentable than what I estimate (eg. I accidentally read off the dextrose priming amount while adding regular table sugar).

Recipe
--------------------
Batch Size: 5.65 gallons
Measured OG: 1.057
Measured FG: 1.004
ABV: 7.0%
Anticipated IBUs: 42.4
Anticipated SRM: 4.6
Actual Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.9%
Boil Time: 75 mins

Malt
--------------------
79.6% [9.75#] - Avangard Pilsner Malt
16.3% [2#] - Rye Malt
4.1% [0.5#] - Munich 10L

Hops
--------------------
8.5 AAU [0.5 oz, 17%] - Apollo @ First Wort Hop
3.35 AAU [0.67 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ 30 mins
2.25 AAU [0.60 oz, 3.75%] - Saaz @ 5 mins
2.25 AAU [0.43 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ 5 mins
2.25 AAU [0.45 oz, 5.4%] - Styrian Goldings @ 5 mins
1.24 AAU [0.33 oz, 3.75%] - Saaz @ Flameout
1.65 AAU [0.33 oz, 5%] - East Kent Goldings @ Flameout
1.78 AAU [0.33 oz, 5.4%] - Styrian Goldings @ Flameout

Extras
--------------------
0.5 Whirlfloc tablets @ 15 mins
0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

Yeast
--------------------
The Yeast Bay Wallonian Farmhouse

Water
--------------------

Winston Salem, NC municipal water (delightfully soft according to city water reports)

4.1 g CaCl

2.4 g CaSO4

3.2 mL 88% Lactic Acid

Mash

--------------------

Saccharification Rest - 18.75 qt @ 151 F

Mash Out - Add 8.5 qt @ 212 F

Notes
--------------------
Decided against building a starter due to anticipated low gravity of brew, and to hopefully stress the yeast into producing more delicious esters.

Mash pH was 5.4.

Sparged to 7.5 gallons of 1.045 wort pre-boil.

Ran out of propane right as boil began. Was able to finish inside on electric stovetop.

Chilled quickly with home-made immersion chiller (thanks to very cold groundwater temperatures).

Started fermentation in a very cold room (65 F ambient), slowly moving into warmer areas over the first week. Finished fermentation in a warm (75 F ambient) closet for two more weeks.

This beer was naturally bottle conditioned to 3 volumes of CO2.